Slashdot Mirror
2004 MN4 Asteroid Odds Inching Up Again
bfwebster writes "The latest update from NASA now gives 2004 MN4 a 1-in-37 chance (probability of 2.7%) of hitting Earth on April 13, 2029. That's a bump up from the 1-in-46 (2.2%) odds given this weekend and almost a 10x increase in probability from the original 1-in-300 odds announced late last week. Interesting times, indeed."
Ladies and gentlemen, may i present the new Slashdot soap opera: Asteroid 2004 MN4!!! That's right -- we have ourselves a new SCO! Watch out, for soon, it'll be demanding $699 license fees from all of you!
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
What, the asteroid already hit the servers?
Or, if you prefer, they are now at 1 in 1,000,000.
This edition of Fun With URLs has been brought to you courtesy of an overly trusting NASA webmaster.
Get all of your doomsday-cults going in time. ;-)
Will Bruce Willis even by alive by then?
Play Command HQ online
I are not under stand what you is try ing to said hear.
One and a half gigatons. Nice. Even if it landed in an ocean, it would still make quite a splash.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Would this be Friday the 13th?
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
We've killed Neo! Now we're doomed for sure!
0x0D 0x0A
First the 1/300 hit probability.. then down to this? Not only will it be the 13th of the month, but friday the 13th if it'd hit...
...
And also the damn tsunami hitting the asia?
What next? SCO wins the case against IBM?
This asteriod is getting better and better odds, however it is what, 14 years away? The odds aren't that good for it to hit us so far, if it gets to 50% I will start to worry. It is also important to note that it is extremely difficult to accuratley predict the path of such an asteriod that is so far away, there are many things that can change over that time, and other factors that we may not even be aware of. Personally I don't see this as to much of a threat , but it does raise the issue of needing more money put into research and defense in case an asteriod is found, that is coming to Earth, we must have some way to defend ourselves against such a collision, since it is only a matter of time before it happens again.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes something special to be different
24 more years to try and get laid.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
The java applet looks cool, too bad it takes forever to load.
It predicts two impacts on the same day of 2031. How can we trust these numbers?
When can we start the looting?
Sure enough, April 13, 2029 is a Friday.
Maybe that old superstition was a premonition instead...
Have you read my blog lately?
Two things we need to do.... and I hope this helps.
1) Get off our island earth and spread. Mars?
2) Create powerful space based energy weapons to destroy this big rock.
Now, a few other things that would be nice:
* Star Ships that travel faster then the speed of light!
* All sorts of neat technologies.
this is more likely to kill you than ANY OTHER death due to injury in your lifetime!
Odds of Death Due to Injury, National Safety Council
A tinfoil hat isn't gunna stand a chance against this thing.
Okay, we've got a little over 24 years warning on this, a bit over 8,850 days by my count. Perhaps we should start assuming this thing is going to hit, and come up with something to do about it. Maybe if we don't turn it away given this much warning, we deserve to get nailed with it.
(Is this rock in Celestia's data files yet? Maybe we should enter it in and run the clock forward...)
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
I would start to worried if astronomers suddenly started to buy a lot of Boeing and Lockheed stock.
I just called up Bruce Willis and he said he will take care of it....
How long does it have to be observed before we know whether it will hit or not? Will a year of observation give us certainty? The Torino scale is a bit strange, given the way that it combines chance of impact, time until impact, and severity of impact. I would think that a three dimensional scale would be more useful.
Lasers Controlled Games!
AND I FEEL FINE...
(Uh, 1 in 7, better than the odds of it hitting Earth.)
Google news's collation of the worldwide media's coverage of this story seams to show that the mainstream serious media is ignoring this story.
UK Laptops
If it misses the first time, it has 40 more chances to hit. The good news is that the other chances are substantially less than the first.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Seems like an interesting opportunity in real-estate futures.
Ok, we now know the probability of the object hitting the earth. What is the possibility of the object hitting the moon?
What impact will the earth have if the object hits the moon?
I can only wonder how high that percentage has to go before we start making plans on how to avoid the posible impact.
Sadly, in the end it will all come down to politics. The president (any president of any country with enough power to do something about this) will want to have certainty before taking the risk of being labeled the greatest hero or the greatest fool in history. And I am not even taking international politics into account.
I guess that it all depends on how high we value life itself.
Cheers,
Adolfo
1 in 37? Who'd be dumb enough to worry with odds like that?! Now excuse me, I need to go buy a lottery ticket for this week.
Keep Austin Weird!
Uh oh. We slashdotted nasa.
I think that might be a federal crime!
Did anyone notice that a few years after the 2.7 probability pass, there is a 9.4 impact probability. that seems to be more noteworthy
--alop
The server's name is apparently Neo. Can it save us? I doubt it since it already took the red pill.
Someone will surely correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure by the name that this is the 16 foot (5 m) rock that passed inside the moons orbit last week. That's large enough, if I remember correctly, to hit the ground if it doesn't break up, but too small to do anything more than very localized damage. If someone really wants to get Karma points, they'll post a link to the asteroid simulator page so we can all go throw a 16 foot rock at the earth and find out how much the climate is affected.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
due to your EXCELLENT math skills.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
It will be intereresting to see what happens on the political front, if it is eventually determined that this thing will hit earth.
At 300m across, it is small enough to be nuked out of harm's way. And fortunately, we still have a lot of time on our side to plan and fly a mission to blast it to rubble, or at least into a different trajectory. But this would mean at least temporarily revoking some treaties regarding nuclear detonations in space. And how will the bill be divided up? What happens if is eventually determined that this thing will land in central Asia or Africa - will unaffected countries still be willing to pick up the tab?
Looks like we will need to develop some sort of (funded) international contingency plan to deal with dangers from space, even if it is eventually determined this particular rock will miss us.
My rights don't need management.
Somebody call Bruce Willis!!!
better than nuclear ones
MN4 is pretty small as asteroids go. Expected impact energy is 1.48 gigatons, which would suck for anyone in a few hundred km, but the rest of us are pretty safe.
From article summary: Interesting times, indeed.
"May you live in interesting times"! Aha! I get it! It's a clever ancient Chinese proverb with a double-meaning!
Wait - no it isn't.
Brought to you by the Slashdot FactCheck 2004 coalition - preventing inaccuracy before it starts!
Muahahahahahahaha!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
And, Number 2, make a note to shoot everyone at NASA for giving away my e-vil plan before I took over the satellite TV system and announced it myself. I'll teach those meddling bastards.
Well, that's lunch everyone.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I think it's about time that the governments of the world start to work together to address the threat of an asteroid colliding with earth, instead of focusing on killing one another. Somehow i see this type of thing going ignored for too long, until it is too late to actually do anything about it Even if this asteroid does not hit earth, it should be a wake up call that the probability of such an occurance is higher then most people think
I love to deploy my packages
Bah!
I'm betting $100 on the roulette wheel. $50 on black. $50 on red. I should be able to play forever, because hey, what are the odds I'll ever lose?
No we don't have to worry about systems with time_t defined as a 32bit signed int rolling over in 2038.
C8H10N4O2 | Developer > Code
We will have all killed each other by then, anyway.
This does bring up an interesting issue, though. What if humans knew 20 years in advance that there was a near 100% chance of complete obliteration by an asteriod? (Yes, I know it would be unlikely to know with such certainty, but that's not the point.) How exactly would society react?
I'm sure many would panic, even though the event was 20 years out, maybe some would commit suicide eventually, and a lot of brain power would be directed towards preventing this disaster. But how would things like personal relationships, international relations, and everyday life and social norms be affected? For example, would people be looked down upon for bringing children into this world? Would warring nations of people put aside their differences and work together or just continue on as usual?
Obviously a lot of questions, none of which I know the answers to. Just trying to trigger some more interesting thoughts and discussion than, "Oh my God, we're all going to die!"
Damn... I know guys who have placed single number bets on roulette and won. I guess I will know in a year or two whether I need a pension plan or not.
Bummer... :(
If you ever get a chance to bet on an asteroid wiping out humanity, make sure you bet that it won't; otherwise even if you win you can't collect.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
So, that's a 97.29% chance that you'll still have to file your taxes two days later.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
And I thought the last crash of '29 was depressing.
-Peter
regards.
Now, just for fun, what are the odds that the odds for a day beign Friday the 13th end in 13?
I think the odds are very close to zero. If further analysis show the asteroid striking Earth, I think by 2029 we'll be able to change its orbit to miss.
a,e,i,o,u and sometimes w and y (at be if of up cwm by)
As a Unix geek I will not have to care of Tue Jan 19 03:14:07 2038 (UTC/GMT) anymore.
32bit time_t size should be just enough to run until April 13, 2029.
Léa Gris
Many people assume that, should this asteroid need to be destroyed, we'd do so with a nuke of some sort. If we did that, and all the bits of the rock came raining down to the Earth, wouldn't that mean we could potentially litter the planet with radioactive rock?
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
it has already generated SIX!
I think I'm going to claim exempt for 2028.. because their is a 1 and 37 chance that I won't have to pay up.
Obama = Socialism.
I hope it's after noon - I have an important 10 o'clock meeting that morning.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Stocks of Boeing and Lockheed today rose 20 points.
The FTSE index says the rises came after a sudden wave of visitors from the online cult site "slashdot".
liqbase
KILL (kill kill kill) NOW (now now now)
(...asteroid knife comes out from behind camera...)
SCREACH!!! SCREACH!!! SCREACH!!!
IT'S JASON!!! NOOOOOO!!! BLOOD EVERYWHERE!!! ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!
----
(various uncapitalized letters to get around lameness filter)
Just the damn thing Osama.
Seriously, there's got to be 2+ star general in the USAF air space wing that would love to try testing a nuke on this thing. Of course given the success of our past missile defense tests, one could have doubts, but I suspect that at least this target is bigger than a barn door.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
How long do we have to wait for this
Hi
I am Prince Okabaoakauu of of the microbial strain found on Asteroid Mn4. We control the motion of our asteroid and can divert it safely if the earthlings wish so. However we are not sure if the earthlings(a.k.a. you) want a collision or not. Hence to help us decide , please forward this mail to 12 people within 1 hour of receiving the mail if you do not want a collision. You will also get a free mobile phone and 2 Ipods. If you do NOT immediately forward this email we will assume that you want the collision.
Thanks
I JUST RECVD THIS MAIL, PLS FWD IT TO ALL UR FRIENDS
There's a guy in Texas, an oil driller, who once helped deflect an asteroid which was going to hit Earth. His name is O'Donnell, but people call him "Odds". After his job in the asteroid, he became known as "Asteroid Odds". He has a very small penis, people say it's only one inch long, but the girls say he can keep it up all night. Isn't that perfectly clear?
And the chances that NASA's NEO server will be slashdotted has been confirmed at 100% :)
That there's not a Beowulf cluster of these things on the way.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I like how the title of this document is "What are the odds of dying?" ... as if they weren't 1:1 odds.
...of getting hit considerably I guess.
I wonder whether I can book a ticket for a 24 hour airplane trip for April 13th of 2029 ahead now....
If so, I could probably pay by putting a dollar into a bank account now, and wait till interest helps it along...
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
It will be my 42nd year. (cringe)
I regularly report MSN spam to the Hotmail admins.
At least redirect it into the Moon so we can watch the fireworks;-)
-Moonstruck-
Fix your grammar before you go creating big weapons. I think we'll use, "that travel faster than the spead of light" instead of your version.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
I ran it through the calculator for a 400 meter asteroid (from the article) made of dense rock (assumed) at 17 km/s and 45 degree impact (suggested by the calculator). I also dropped it in 1000 m of water, as it has a 75% chance of landing in the oceans.
Results
- Impact Energy: 1.23 x 10^19 Joules
- Crater Formed in Seafloor: 2.46 km diameter
- Earthquake: 6.0 on Richter Scale
- Radiant Flux at 100 km: 7.68 times that of sun
Numbers should, of course, be taken with a grain of saltJust because the probability keeps going up, it doesn't mean that we are getting increasingly sure that the asteroid will hit Earth. Suppose that the asteroid were going to come close to Earth without hitting it. At first, the impact probability would appear low since the "window" of orbits allowed from the data would be wide. As we got better observations, however, this window would shrink, but the Earth would stay inside it since it's near the center. Thus, for a time the probability of impact would go up, since the Earth would take up a greater percentage of the window. Eventually, though, the window would shrink past the Earth and the probability would go down again.
I suspect that this is what will happen. Could easily be wrong, though.
Snarkiness is inversely proportional to wisdom because it emphasizes feeling right rather than being right.
...will welcome our new asteroid overlords.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
Crazy, I was just checking my bookmark on this when the slashdot article popped up. Anyways..
Here is the wikipedia page explaining the Torino Scale. I still wouldn't worry about it until the thing hit at least a 8 or so. The article gives a nice explanation of what astronomers would do in warning the governments in the event they thought this thing deserved any real attention.
Torino ScaleTry not to let life get in the way of living.
Seems like an interesting opportunity in real-estate futures.
Only if you mean these real estate futures.
I'm just imagining vacationing to whichever side of the earth this thing is going to be on in 2029, and watching it pass narrowly by. That's going to be an incredible site. And, if it -does- hit the earth, at least I'll be quickly vaporised.
Revelation 8:1-13 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer [it] with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, [which came] with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast [it] into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!
Neutrons are slippery little rascals, they can fool you. They can bounce and show up around corners you don't expect.
I was a kid when the NASA predicted that Skylab will crash in India (Year 1979).
People from my town started spending money and cursing US fearing they will be dead after the crash. Within a week most of the people were financially broke.
Later, Skylab crashed into Pacific. It took a long for those people to recover.
In 2029, I predict Credit Card companies will do overwhelming business.
We need farmers to make food...oh wait we import that now. Well, if it does hit a red state, they can only blame Bush. It was found on his watch anyways.
I wonder how many fatal asteroids have nearly missed the earth before we had the technology to see them.
... of this nation are her citizens. We'll examine the facts, and then each State will direct its national representatives to take action.
If we see that the thing is going to hit here, we'll just take care of it, like we did to fascism and totalitarianism, and are doing right now to terrorism.
If you don't believe that we can do, have done, and will do these things, you are deluded.
I don't see the original author having posted it yet, so here's a link to an interesting theory regarding the possibility that what we're looking at is in fact just the upper stage of a rocket launched some time ago.
~Lake
I wonder how much closer things have to be before our very existance becomes at least as important as keeping our neighbors hungry and out shareholders happy?
That's it. I'm out of here.
And there will still be some guy going "FIRST POST!" then BAM
Keep in mind that the very nature of the situation will result in the probability slowly creeping upward until (hopefully of course), it is eliminated entirely. The very nature of having a low-probability situation whose likelihood has to be determined with continued measurements to increase the precision of the prediction means that as the likely set of paths is refined, the cylinder that represents the likely set of paths of the asteroid shrinks. Because it shrinks, the probability that it will be at any given point in that cylinder goes up.
At the point when the cylinder is projected to miss Earth entirely, the probability of impact will suddenly go to (very near) zero. In other words, the very nature of the situation regarding refining the data we have means that the probability will creep slowly upward before it goes to zero. (This happens for all close encounters, of course; it's just that no one's watching the actual probabilities for those too carefully.)
So the steady rise of the impact probability may be disquieting, but it is not unexpected and does not actually indicate anything particularly additionally troubling going on.
Let's look at the big picture. Whether this rock slams into earth or not, the sun is going to use up all of its fuel someday. Either way, the earth will not exist as we know it forever.
Have a good day!
Interesting times, indeed.
:-S
Yeah, that's surely a geek-optimistic way to look at it.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Here is a movie I just made (3ivx 4.5, 528KB) of the possible orbital dance that Earth and 2004 MN4 may have in April - May 2029.
I made this video using the 2004 MN4 orbital data from the NASA NEO site. The program I used, Starry Night, doesn't take into account things such as gravitational attraction, but it's a reasonable view showing just how close we'll be to 2004 MN4 when it comes around in 2029
...at the rate these bumps have been going; by April 13th 2029, Slashdot will be reporting a 3876/3877 chance of the asteroid hitting Earth with an estimated 9 out of every 10 stories having to deal with collisions with Near-Earth Objects.
Excuse me if insinuate that this story is starting to get old now. As is the topic itself. Those that want to know are following the story themselves now.
IMHO, this is a cleverly disguised appeal for more funding, and I don't mind getting modded down for telling it as I see it.
I mean, I'm sure people smarter than myself will be able to figure out where its going to hit and when, so would we be able to safely evacuate these areas to eliminate most if not all casualties? Would shooting a nuke at this thing be a serious option? Or would something like that just cause it to fragment and cause even more damage? What about shooting rockets at it that attach to the asteroid and continuously fire their rockets to push it off its current course?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
...In fact, it's been around since 1979!
I wonder how long it will take NASA to start building the little triangle ships?
As long as those tiny UFOs don't show up, we should be safe.
Don't Panic
it can be the next X-Prize. First one to destroy the rock wins.
On a lighter note.. So, what do you think will kill us first, this asteroid or global warming?
it will be a day of morning
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Odds of increased coverage of this silly story have increased to 100%.
Only death awaits you all, but do not fear. For is it through death that a new spirit energy is born. Soon, you will live again as a part of me. *summons ultimate destructive black magic meteor*
www.TECHNETIUM.net.au
4 on the Torino scale and 1.10 on the Palermo scale. Yikes.
Is this the first NEO to get a positive value on the Palermo scale?
The Sumatra earthquake was 9.0, and it just killed
over 24000 people. Supposing nothing is done (except
for evacuations) and the asteroid hits, how would
the damage compare?
Unfortunatly people have a great deal of trouble understanding small probabilities, we tend to round them off to zero once they fall below a certain level. Just as bad most people tend to worry about things they can understand and see examples of (like mugging and murder) and ignore those dangers they don't understand or have never seen even if these dangers are more risky.
Global warming and asteroid impacts are two great examples. While global warming doesn't have the low probability problem (some of its extreme consequences like a repeat of the younger dras cold period do) it is likewise an unfamiliar danger with the capacity to impact most humans. Yet our natural inclination is to be afraid of events we see like planes flying into the world trade center even if they are of less risk to ourselves.
A close call with a large asteroid is exactly what we need to wake us up. It is probably too much to hope that we would start allocating our budget based on an objective risk/benefit analysis. Hopefully though it could at least raise our level of emotional concern about these global catastrophes.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
It isnt going to hit the moon, as it is on the other side of the earth when the asteroid is suposed to hit.
With all eyes on this asteroid, how long will it be before they remember to keep looking for the still-unknown ones that might hit BEFORE April 13, 2029?
Just think of the possibilities. You could build a asteroid-proof shelter in your backyard, and then, when it's clear that the human race has only hours left to live, you invite all the cute chicks from your neighborhood into your shelter, so that can ... ehem... repopulate the Earth.
Finally, slashdot readers get laid.
This would almost make it worth wiping out civilization as we know it.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
You know it's true, too.
I've got my duct tape, some water and batteries.
All I can say to that asteroid is this, BRING IT ON!
v4sw6PU$hw6ln6pr4F$ck 4/6$ma3+6u7LNS$w2m4l7U$i2e4+7en6a2X h
www.mn4.com is owned by a spanish company. So I believe that they will crash their property somewhere far from them. I bet either Australia/New Zealand.
Woot I'm safe in southern France...
Home of Faramir Paint Shop Pro scripts
if Bush doesn't liberate us and if Ukraine doesn't torpedoe our airplanes, this baby will still get us at the end.
You can't handle the truth.
Too bad we can't aim it at all the Red States. After all, theyr'e the one who got us into this mess with all their evangelical apocalypse visions. Mind over matter folks. The evangelicals put all their wishes together and summoned up this rock in their misguided attempt to make it into heaven. The middle east has guys crashing planes into buildings to get to their virgins in heaven and the U.S. has whackjob evangelicals crashing asteroids into the whole fucking planet. Great. Fucking great job guys.
lets start rollin the dice !!
Nukes my foot, I'm sure when the day actually rolls round the asteroid will be destroyed by a teenage girl piloting a giant space mech with a really fkking big gun
(okay so there's no supernova wave involved here but you get the idea. Cookie goes to whoever gets the reference)
...from the movie "True Stories" by David Byrne. This one character played by Spalding Gray ended one of his sentences with "...what with the end of the world coming and all". I think I'm going to start using this liberally in all of my conversations... what with the end of the world coming and all. ;P
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
"Women's lib ended about 15 seconds after impact" (paraphrasing) We'll test that theory.
BC
An impact would probably throw enough material up into the atmosphere that we wouldn't have to worry about global warming for a good long while.
I'm watching this thing as closely as I can, but I don't think we're as doomed as we look.
Using an impact calculator that people have quoted in a number of earlier posts, 2004 MN4 (being only .4km wide) will only produce a crater about 4km wide (if it hits land). This is quite small, in fact.
The Chicxulub crater, left by the rock that killed the dinosaurs, is at least 150km in diameter, theoretically left by a rock 10km in diameter.
Essentially, unless you're under it or near the tidal wave, I don't think you have much to worry about from 2004 MN4. But now is a better time than ever to realize we need to work on our planetary defences.
I got it.
Didnt it also posit that Israel and the Arab world would have a fight to the death just after?
emt 377 emt 4
...three times this year about the issue of NEO impact. I received no response. Perhaps this will pique her interest. Her name is Anna Eshoo, and she needs to get on this issue. I think we need to build a Space Elevator RIGHT NOW so that we can haul heavy stuff up there to deal with this kind of problem.
Better to pulverize it into little chunks that would burn up in the atmosphere.
Why risk turning one asteroid problem into thousands of smaller asteroid problems when all you need to do is to make it miss?
A couple of years with a big solar sail attached could make a tiny change to the orbit. Ditto a solar-powered ion engine, or a reactor-powered one if you're in a hurry. If you're in a huge hurry, put an Orion-style pusher plate onto it and hit it with a long series of small bombs.
Big one's don't.
The IRS income tax deadline in 2029 will be Monday, April 16th. I think, perhaps, I'll file for an extension that year.
Specifically, I used a 0.0003 meter grain of salt with a density of 2165 kg/m^3 (suggested by the I'm Feeling Lucky result for how big is a grain of salt) at 17km/s and 45 degree impact, and dropped it in 1000 meters of water.
Results
- Impact Energy: This projectile is so small that it burns up during atmospheric traverse
- Crater Formed in Seafloor: Are you kidding?
- Earthquake: It burns up in the freakin' atmosphere!
- Radiant Flux at 100 km: You're an idiot.
I really don't see what you're so worried about."Survivor: Asteroid Impact"
You compete with 20 others to get a spot in the emergency bunkers.
No holds barred.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
...to doom us all by fscking up trying to prevent the asteroid hitting the Earth.
Any chance of the Earth catching this thing and creating another moon? Like the moons around Mars?
"There is only a one in six billion chance that you actually exist"
If the asteroid gets too close, all we have to do is hook it up to a cable or dsl line, and post an article about emulating a C64 under a homebrew nintendo close running a linux port onto the asteroid. then link it from slashdot.
we'll be fine.
shucks - would like to see this smack our silly asses. Of course, we could get out sh*t together and save the planet, but Im guessing we'll screw it up somehow. The human race needs a good biatch slap and an asteroid would be perfect. So to all you youngins, if this bears fruit, good luck!
Couldn't it near-miss the earth, and be tugged into Earth's asteroid-shadow just far enough to intersect with the moon?
Florida gets 3 hurricanes just before the election...
Ohio gets a killer Blizzard soon after the election...
Biggest earthquake in 40 years...
Big frickin rock discovered headed towards earth...
...AKA ACTS OF GOD.
...and the evangelicals in Jesus Land (TM) still think god appointed W president.
That, or W could be just another one of the disasters.
I agree with Mike Malloy, it's time for a headpinching.
> We need to build a monumentally massive tin hat for the world.
How about a tinfoil hat for one side of the asteroid?
Unfortunately, the Yarkovsky Effect - deflecting an asteroid by differentially heating parts of its surface - is likely to be too small to save us. Deflection of a rock comparable in size to 2004MN4, namely 6489 Golevka, was observed as 15km in 12 years of observation. Depending on the eventual impact point (if any) of 2004MN4, we may have to deflect it by thousands of kilometers.
Yes, you'll probably get much more deflection by wrapping half the rock in mylar (and/or dusting the other half of it with soot), rather than relying on the natural effect observed on 6489 Golevka, but we don't know enough about 2004MN4 (albedo/mass) to guess yet.
Hmmm...
... PROFIT!!!!
1: Convince everyone impact is eminent. 2: Sell Asteriod insurance... 3:
The earth is dying!?
Zhu Guangya is a physicist and is a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. He has been instrumental in shaping China's development programs for the A-bomb and the H-bomb. Being a strategic scientist, Zhu has helped create the country's long-term development of defense technology.
Noting his crucial role in country's technological development Lu Yongxiang, president of china handed over a certificate of asteroid possession to Zhu at ceremony and workshop last Sunday.
http://www.aisnota.com/slashdot/ Welcome to Logic and the Future
...will it go away?
See my journal, I write things there
I'd be worried too, they are suppose to be looking at the sky not the stock market!!
Ouch!
I already left with Heavens Gate.
LOL
Peace.
... obligatory Clerks reference...
showing non-miss propability in real-time?
It would fit nice next to that old gweather applet..
--
cyfex
Using NASA's figures (link from the story): impact velocity 12.59 km/s, diameter 0.390 km, mass 7.9e+10 kg
Guestimating volume if it's a sphere is (4 / 3) * pi * (((0.390/2) km)^3) = 31 059 355.8 m^3 (calc)
Guestimating density if it's a sphere is (7.9e+10 kg) / ((4 / 3) * pi * (((0.390/2) km)^3)) ~= 2540 kg / m^3 (calc), which is necessary for the calculator, and looks like a reasonable figure.
Totally guessing impact angle of 45 degrees.
I'm sure they actually have a decent fix on what part of the Earth it would hit. And a pretty decent guess of the angle of impact, too.
The low impact velocity means no fireball, apparently, and very little immediate effect once you get a few hundred miles away. It looks like this calculator doesn't mention the potential for tidal waves, though. Dunno what about that. And dunno if it's ignoring potential climate effects.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Does everyone in the world get a free Taco if it hits a Taco Bell?
Southeastern Virginia REPRESENT!
Haven't you ever watched the poker channel?
It happens all the time.
haven't you heard, reggie white died. clearly he is more important than an asteroid or a tsunami creating earthquake killing several thousand.
http://www.angryflower.com/astero.gif
really!! do some research
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
This book by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle described the tracking of an asteroid which ultimately strikes the earth, causing, among other things, a mile-high tidal wave in Los Angeles. The devastating effects leave only isolated pockets of civilazation still functioning. Lucifer's Hammer is a large book, but well worth reading.
If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
First, obviosly we do not know if the thing is going to hit. For this reason we cannot predict where exactly it would hit either. But we can estimate that at least to a hemisphere.
I believe some on Slashdot either know how to do such calculation (which half of the Earth is going to face the incoming asteroid) or know people who already did. So please cough this information up.
Second, what would be criteria to decide whether we even want to stop the damned thing at all? I suspect it would be a while before we know where it is going to hit.
If it is going into a low density area (not ocean), would not we just cordon it off and enjoy the show?
What if it is NYC? Is it cheaper to abandon NYC or try to stop the asteroid?
What are the other possibilities and our response to them?
What about possible ways to change its trajectory / destroy it? Surface nuclear blast? The thing is not that big. When atomic energy was used to move earth / dig canals, the volume of work was comparable to this rock.
According to this calculator the crater would be about 9 kilometers in diameter, it would cause a 7.1 strong earthquake and a 44 m/s shockwave a hundred kilometers from the epicentre. (Assuming 90 degree collision angle and iron composition - basically, the worst.)
Note that this assumes 4940 megatons in kinetic energy, and Nasa says it's "only" 1600.
the old man is hurling four-football-field-long rocks at us!
Look at the odds
No offense, but you sound like the typical overly-politically motivated yahoo whose head is in outer space. Put away the tin foil had.
PS- that isn't aliens talking to you through your TV, that's just static.
Noting his crucial role in country's technological development Lu Yongxiang, president of china handed over a certificate of asteroid possession to Zhu at ceremony and workshop last Sunday.
Before anyone else takes it, I claim the Moon! (I'm printing up a Certificate of Moon Possession as we speak)
I e-mailed this story to my local television news station. They're going to headline it on the 6:00 p.m. news. Better stock up on toilet paper and canned goods before the hysterical masses wipe the shelves clean. . .
"I worked hard for it. I deserve it. And I have it," Campbell said. "It's all mine."
Does anyone or can anyone put the
known data into a Celestia importable
file format so the ignorant among us
can view this possible event?? (Speaking
of myself.)
is entirely on you.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't these odds _only_ go up until they drop to 0? So that reporting the fact that the odds have gone up is just reporting on the fact that we have slightly more data, which is blatently obvious as we're recording it continuously?
i guess since they know almost everything about the path and the chance of hitting the earth and when it's going to hit the earth...
do they have a map of WHERE (with %) it's going to hit?
Privacy is terrorism.
The probability of rolling snake eyes on two (six sided) dice is 1 in 36, compared to 1 in 37 chance of earth being hit by that asteroid. How many times has any slashdot reader rolled snake eyes in their lifetime?
I just thought it was a sobering way to think about it.
This gives me just enough time to become a master oil-driller and put together a crack team of oddballs to drill to the center of the asteroid and nuke it.
Hopefully I will not bear a beautiful child that the hunky oil-driller will fall in love with...
Playing around with the simulator for the 2004 MN4 and Earth orbits, looks like it will be about .105 AU from Earth on that date. However, on April 14, 2052 it's a scant .0027 AU...now that's close! The simulator actually shows the two hitting each other.
"It's coming right for us!"
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
*dons tinfoil skullcap*
They didn't see that /.'ing comin'
No sig for you!!
Does anyone have comparable numbers for major volcanic eruptions? I'm specifically thinking about the eruptions near the year without a summer (1816).
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Has anyone else noticed that the graphic for the Torino Impact Hazard Scale has changed in the last few days? Among other things, Levels 2-4 have had the phrase "New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment to level 0" added to their descriptions.r ino_text_big.jpg
I believe the original graphic was similar to this: http://www.dca.state.fl.us/bpr/EMTOOLS/spacewx/to
That in order to avoid panic, they haven't mentioned the 97.3% change it will hit on the 14th
Or how about T-Shirts and coffee mugs.
(too much time on my hands)
When is the Social Security projected to go broke?
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
could this be the work of... THE TERRORISTS!?1/
Bye bye Micro$oft!
;)
Muwhahahahaha!!
could this be the work of... THE TERRORISTS!?1/
raise the terror alert system to black; for impending Apocalypse!
Now who wants Mojitos! Open Invitation to New Orleans for IcarusMoth's First Annual Armaggedon Party! There will be chips and dip.
--
Zim: I put the fires out.
Tallest: Zim, you made them worse.
Zim: Worse or BETTER?
And it seems we might meet the Focker indeed! ;-)
Or at least Tim Burton's revisionist version. ;)
The hard part is finding a woman with:
1: The mind of a sage.
2: The patience of a saint
3: The face of an angel
4: The body of a baywatch hottie
5: The libido of a nymphomaniac.
In other words, marriage material.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
...should the odds look grim and there's only x-small amount of seats off planet, I would wager it's the guys with the biggest guns and the willingness to use them who would get off planet, and I doubt they would let any civilian politicians or generic stupid random rich farts go for a ride either, they would tell them to fudge off. To get loyalty from their other troops, they would hold a lottery for the last few seats, to insure no counter revolts, with winners only announced at the last second. Maybe.
Even then it might not occur, jealous other military forces might attack with such force that no one gets off the planet at all. And by 2029 I *doubt* we will have much of a space launch ability anyway, I think a thousand all at once would be pushing it. I've weatched the space race since going outside and staring up trying to see sputnik, and frankly, it ain't all that far along compared to what I thought would happen way back then. and even with rutans and virgin airlines help, it still won't be that much further along in the 20's unless there's some sort of dramatic breakthrough to replace chemical reaction rocket engines. They are just too expensive for huge mass production, require a lot of people to get a few people off the ground and lots of work. And you'd still have the problem of how would you get the ground crew to cooperate? Like stated, what good is money. Now, maybe large balloons, or blimps might be sufficient, not sure, but it would be worth a try and a heck of a lot cheaper to mass produce..I bet mass prouction you can make decent Model T blimps for the price of a car. Add in some groceries and grog, good to go for a week of floating above the destruction. Earth quakes and Tsuanmis you could fly over and float around for awhile until things settled down. Even if the winds blow ya around, so what, let em. strap in.
That might be more doable on a somewhat larger scale than just 1,000 people. You would think after a few days it would be enough settled to reland someplace.
Me,with a big ole asteroid coming in, and say no blimp or rocket, naked barbecue! Dead mans dinner, surf and turf! Well,proly wear a grease spatter apron, got to be practical about these things. Then kick back in the lawn chairs and watch the show! Hmm, maybe loot a bank and play monopoly with real money and deeds to properties waiting for it to show up. sort of like new years eve countdown.
Ya, ya, I know, you young guys all thinking the same thing, "hang out with the ole lady ya tarded fool, get you a bunch..."..Sure,sure, sure, sure, but get that out of the way the week before the show. I mean, you can get lucky anytime, how often do you get to see a PLANET SMASHER hit? We are geeks, some things are just *important*.
Anyway, that one is too small, need a much larger one for a good fireworks show. The Mayans claim no history past 2012 anyway, something like that I was reading.
Now that we finally have some non-zero odds to witness an asteroid impact on earth, everybody here is pushing to nuke it, spoiling a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
While everyone is pissing over an asteroid, 23,000+ people died in an earthquake that moved the entire island of Sumatra 100 feet and "disturbed the Earth's rotation." But that doesn't get posted on /. WTF? HELLO? HELLO???
Mainstream media can only handle one natural disaster at a time, and the one that happened NOW is more important than the one which has a 2.7% chance of happening in 25 years.
Also, we should expect the probability of impact to continue to increase until it either goes to zero (most likely) or 1. This asteroid has a sigma of 0 - that means the MOST LIKELY path is impact. More observations are most likely going to eliminate the outlying paths first, so as we eliminate more and more of the outlying paths of possibility the most likely path will be more and more likely.
Until we get the observation that says "Ah, yeah, definitely going to miss", and then it'll be zero again.
paintball
humanity always needed some kind of threat to work together...
things like the tsunami in the indian ocean and this asteroid makes people feel united and forget about childish fights about all kinds of unimportant things...
hope for the best
..would probably release enough energy to cause earthquakes, so we'd get an additional bonus shaking. A gigaton concentrated on one spot would penetrate deep you would think, energy wise. I guess it depends where it hits, some areas more likely than others to take it as an earthquake domino effect.
Roulette has 18 black, 18 red, and 1 green for those not in the know.
You're not a very good roulette player, are you?
paintball
if it hits the moon maybe we won't have to worry about showing proof for landing on the moon.
2.7e-2 = 0.027
9.4e-7 = 0.00000094 or pretty much 0.
paintball
Damn .. that's a week after I pay of the mortgage
Latest NASA update shows limited chance of impact.
1 in 56,000.
Looks like the odds have changed again. Down to 1 in 56,000 - It's even a zero on the torino scale now. Check it out here.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html I don't know what happened, but it's suddenly a 0 on the torino scale, etc. And impact date has changed to being 2039+... could that mean a return trip from the sun or something? Whatever happens, seems this story is over.
I expect that the Washington state democrats are going to demand NASA do a recount w....
Then, when we discover the overlooked orbital anomalies, and get the odds down to 7 to 1 in favor of a hit the republicans will sue....
What machines are being used to calculate these?
--
Zot O'Connor
call me so i can bring my dice and check if it's worth worrying.
Thank you.
I think perhaps we should wait a little longer until we start deciding if this will be an issue or not. I mean, we do have a few years after all...
or else!
The 25-year advance warning is more than sufficient to relocate anyone in the blast area, so your statement about millions/billions of deaths is just silly. There would be practically zero deaths. Natural disasters are usually problematic because they take us by surprise. On the other hand, it could completely destroy cities or coastlines (via a resultant tsunami), so the economic damage might be immense.
The Nasa risk page doesn't show 2029 right now. Phew. Clearly, all we need to do is make sure they leave the HTML the way it is, and we're safe...
They recently revised the page at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html to say the probability of impact is 1.8e-05, which is 1 in 55,555.
JPL's 2004MN4 page has been updated, and now there's no prediction for a near pass at all in 2029, and the cumulative impact odds are now 1 in 56,000.
Looks like they found a much older observation of the asteroid that allowed the orbit to be determined very precisely.
That's Friday the 13th!
You guys are pussies. It's 1300 feet long.
Here's your reference point:
In 1995 the Landmark Hotel was demolished. It was 365 feet tall (about 1/4 size). It took 100 POUNDS of TNT. That's not a misprint. POUNDS.
Call me after they have hit this rock with at least as many pounds of dynamite as my FUCKING CAR.
http://www.pcap.com/landmark.htm
I repeat myself. You guys are pussies.
Sorry to break up the wise-cracking fun but the latest update at the impact risk page now has the asteroid at 0 on the Torino scale and the impact odds at 1 in 56,000.
And, in fact, hitting the page now (15:30 Pacific time), it's clear that the risk is gone; the object is now a Torino 0 (for all projected future encounters).
Observations were found from the Spacewatch telescope in March 2004, and the new observations remove the chance of impact prior to 2038.
The end is near.
Anyway, it's only around 1.5 Gigaton potential yield....
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
"The latest update from NASA now gives 2004 MN4 a [increased/decreased probability of impact]. Somebody tell Bruce Willis!!! NASA advises, however, that this probability is likely to decrease in the near future. There is also a 50% chance that it will increase. You can calculate the impact outcome based on some parameters. Guys, this only gives us til April 13, 2029 to have sex... Friday the 13th!
Don't worry. The asteroid won't get us. This proves it. http://www.ebaumsworld.com/endofworld.html
The probability is now way down: 2e-5
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
I'm told this is due to identifying the asteroid on pre-discovery archival images.
The NASA impact probability page has been updated - it's a miss! (Almost certainly - less chance than random debris) It's down to Torino 0, Palermo -2.23, cumulative impact probability 0.0018%.
This morning we were looking at a 2.7% chance based on 176 observations and this afternoon we are looking at essentially zero chance based on 118 observations. Sounds like they decided to throw some of their data out resulting in a near zero probability.
Most Slashdot readers we'll be long dead by 2029. Most probable causes of death: 1) Cheese fries, 2) Toppings on Leftover pizza gone bad, 3)Heart explodes from extremely high levels of caffeine combined with causes 1 and 2.
Is this A) Government trying to keep it secret so they can cause less panic ? B) Simple mistake C) NASA cover up so they can relocate everything and save millions and be the only survivors. Not A as the government CAUSES panic, not dampens it... Not B as a mistake from 1 in 37 probabilty to now 1 in 56,000 is not exactly in the margin of errors that people would expect a government agency to be within. :o /me covers private parts with aluminum foil
It seems the updated measerments striked it out from the list. Torino 0, cumulative probability 1.8e-5
The nasa website says it is a 1 in 526,316,000 chance of a collision event. The asteroid has been downgraded to a ZERO on the scale.
Eat that apocolypse lovers.
FYI.
/ neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
"JPL has updated its 2004 MN4 risk assessment, dropping its Torino Scale rating to zero, and eliminating completely all impact solutions before the year 2037. Overall impact probability is put at one in 55,556. "
Source:
http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/news.htm
http:/
Move along, nothing to see here.
http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk/2004mn4.html
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Hopefully, the Earth will be knocked out of its comfortable orbit, with its axis swinging at a different angle, and its distance being somewhat different from the sun, so that all the oceans will dry up, the atmosphere will blow away, all plant life will turn to dust, and all animal life will wither and die in massive clouds of smoke that will cover the Earth after the impact. Afterwards, Earth will be about as full of life as the surface of Mercury.
All historical achievements, all things accomplished by man, all things discovered, learned, studied, and developed over thousands of years, all political changes that were brought about by the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands, even millions of people, all things great and small, all religions, and even love, will mean absolutely nothing after this happens... because nobody and nothing will be here to even know that they once existed.
Why would I hope for such a terrible thing to happen? Because life is a pile of shit, and I can't wait to be put out of my misery.
Impact probability is now virtually zero. So how close/far do they expect it to get?
OK. This thing wasn't even discovered until June 2004, and now all of a sudden we have data from March of 2004? Yesterday the number of observations was like 169, now there are only 118? I smell a rat. Or a bug. Or a hack. I want an explanation for the extra/missing data. Mark
Frankly, I'm surprised at this... isn't the 2000 SG 344 also due to hit Earth in 2030?
And then there's 1950DA which is a civilization killer
user @ amd64 (/user) cal 4 2029
April 2029
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 division by zero
I guess those unix guys knew what they were doing when they settled on a time representation that rolls over in 2038.
MM
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
I know everyone likes to be a jokester about this, but the reality is it isn't THAT big and can be easily moved or deflected.
1400 feet isn't that big.
Scientists are smart. In times of need, they will find a solution, and quickly at that.
Don't worry about it.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
It's good they didn't pick up on it and go overboard as they have done before.
As of today the risk factor of the TORINO IMPACT HAZARD has dropped to 0. And on the Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale scale is now a -2.23.
The chance of impact is now 0.001800000%
It's been updated to a 0 on the Torino Scale and according to the 2004 NM risk stats it has a 0.001800000% of hitting earth.
"Probability of 2.7%"
...
There you go, I always thought probability was between zero and one (inform yourself)
I knew Bush would think of an inventive solution.
According to the impact risk site, the probability has been adjusted way down to 1.8e-05 with a Torino scale value of zero. A shame - I was hoping for some real drama and intrigue.
- Allen Pike
Altering time, one time at a time.
...to have an asteroid with a high enough probability of impact, but which is far enough in the future, that it might well encourage the development of SpaceGuard, without actually posing a truely devestating, immediate and unstoppable threat.
--
Toby
I tracked back the observations to the version I had in cache in my laptop. Back when the last used observation by JPL was Dec 26.14032 and the probability was 0.022, JPL reported 169 observations used. http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/mpec/K04/K04Y64.html, MPEC 2004-Y64, also lists around 160 observations in total, ending on that date. Obviously, just about every observation was used until this calculation.
Anyway, if the identification on March 15 is reasonably correct, even a hundred missing observations from the last few days shouldn't do much of a difference, if randomly chosen (not chosen just to fit the identification in March). Most of the accuracy is from the position at a certain date, not from the added precision of more measurements at just about the same time.
True, but if you remember the previous number of observations was 169 (source, Google Cache) and the new number is 118. What happened to those other 51 observations and why did the baseline increase from 189.9 days to 287 days?
I'll be turning 60 on April 13, 2029. This is not the way I was expecting to start my retirement.
Outpost was an interesting space colonization game by Sierra (pre-EA) for Windows 3.1. It covered the possibility of an asteroid striking Earth around 2050 and an extra-Solar colonization scenario designed around it.
I want to know if there's a company pursuing that possibility and putting together a crash colonization program. I might not get on the ship but I'll be glad to help a hundred (or two hundred) other souls on their way.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
Okay, the post isn't funny, but the T-shirt is hilarious!
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_project
If we need to get off the planet. Lets build a bunch of the Super Orions and move. The enviroment is going to be screwed by the asteroid anyway what's a little extra radiation.
Volcano insurance. Now I'll need to steal from Lois again. This is not Freakin' Sweet!
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
http://www.newpath4.com/societyalsurvivalultimatee ngineisnotcombustionenginenotgasolinenginenotdiese lengineandefinitelynotpropulsionenginesplusstoppin gicbmsandasteroids.htm#icbmskillerasteroidsdualsol utioninterconnectedringedlasertrapbolo
Does anyone else find it odd that each post mentions the year 2029 when in fact the year in question is actually 2044? From the NASA table YYYY-MM-DD.DD = 2044-04-13.29 where the .29 is a decimal fraction of the thirteenth day of April, 2044. The first pass-by included in the chart won't happen until 2030-04-13.88! Link to the chart.
We have the climate changing in drastic ways, we have a killer asteroid coming our way, and some odd billion years from now, either the Bees or the Cock Roaches will be arguing over whether they sencelessly 'hunted' us out of existence.
This is a dedicated web page about this asteroid : http://2004mn4.info/ On the forum on this web site i found a URL showing the daily evolution of the impact probability: http://cacaribou.myftp.org/impact.htm